France’s Altran buys Bangalore-based chip manufacturer SiCon Tech

Altran, the French innovation and high-end technology consulting firm, has acquired SiCon Design Technologies, an engineering services company, to enter the semiconductor designing and manufacturing business in India.

This is the first semiconductor deal in which a foreign multinational corporation has acquired an Indian start-up, said Sanjay Kumar, CEO and managing director of Altran India

Bangalore-based SiConTech was founded in 2010 and has a team of over 500 specialising in semiconductor design.

The deal will give Altran, whose business is anchored in Europe, access to SiConTech's clients, and the semiconductor chip design domain, which it doesn't operate in, said a statement.

Altran did not disclose the deal value.

"From the time Altran gained a foothold in India, we've gone from strength to strength with respect to innovating and delivering more value to our customers in all industrial sectors both in India and throughout the world. The acquisition of SiConTech will help us to enhance our embedded software offering and to expand our range of services," Sanjay Kumar.

SiConTech currently works with seven of the top 10 global semiconductor companies and was ranked one of the fastest growing ASIC design services companies in India by Deloitte Technology Fast 50 India in 2013 and 2014.

"Becoming part of the Altran group will broaden our expertise, as well as enhance both our client portfolio and our research and development capacity, and reinforce our position with our customers," Naveen Chava, CEO of SiCon Tech, said in a statement.

Altran India, the Altran group's wholly-owned unit, has adopted an aggressive growth strategy by infusing additional capital into the company and expanding its offerings over the last three years.

''Since then we have scaled up by four times,'' Sanjay Kumar said. ''The chip design business is getting extremely competitive and therefore the role of India in driving this is going to increase substantially.''

SiConTech's CEO Naveen Chava, who previously worked with Texas Instruments for 14 years before starting the company in 2010, will head Altran's intelligence systems unit which is going to be integrated with SiConTech.

Other SiConTech employees are expected to continue in their old roles. With their addition, Altran's workforce in India would double from about 550 to 1,100.

''Our reach, our expertise is limited to semiconductor companies but with Altran our expertise can reach many more customers. Today we are very strong in India, China and the United States. We definitely think we can do much more in all other continents,'' said Chava.

Semiconductors are used in a wide range of applications such as in mobiles, telecommunications, aerospace, information technology and defence. Most of these areas are witnessing rapid growth, leading to a growth in the semiconductor industry as well.

According to the India Electronics and Semiconductor Association, the Indian electronic system design and manufacturing industry is expected to touch $400 billion by 2020, up from $94 billion in 2015.

''Earlier, there was a talk about the semiconductor space getting saturated, but with the new Internet of Things coming, again we are going to see a boom in the next two three years,'' said Chava.